Best Garage Lighting?

[airbur]

Looking to add some good lights to my garage for working on the Bronco etc. Any suggestions other than the cheap fluorescent at Home Depot? Thanks!

 

[needabronco]

As many strips of light as you can afford! Literally. I actaully like to have a couple 4' strips of florescents that aren't hung on the wall but that can be moved around where I'm working, especially if I'm doing body work.

 

[Broncobowsher]

Don't do the cheap flourscents. I did that once. The hum from one ballast isn't that great, but the hum from several will drive you mad. step up to some better units and they will be quieter and you will be happier. I learned this on round 2, the new house. I did the high output 32W 4' bulbs. Read the lumens rating, that is light output. 4 bulbs per bay is a good number. Surroundings and wall/floor color reflectivity will also play a part.

At work (couple of 30 bay garage) they changed out all the old metal halyide bulbs for modern flourscents. More light, less energy, no hum either, they also turn on with a flip of the switch without any real warm up time unlike what they replaced.

 

[airbur]

Thanks guys. I've found quite a few of the cheaper flourscents but not many better quality units. What should I expect to pay for a good 4' 2 bulb fixture...$60 or so? I've got a 3 car garage so I'm thinking probably about 6 total will work. Thanks.

 

[fordfan]

The best I have found are the Super High Output T - 6 Fixtures. We recently installed these in the sign shop and they are awesome. The ones we installed have 8 bulbs with a chrome reflector that looks like one from a tanning bed and the bulbs are 4' long. They put out 400 watts per fixture and use 36 watts of power. The bulbs are about as large as your finger in diameter. We purchased the fixtures complete with bulbs from our local electrical supply (Mayer Electric) for about $200 apiece. They are well worth it....best lighting I have seen. The rod shop still has the old T - 12 bulbs and eventhough they are "High Output", there is tons of difference.

 

[mortimersnerd]

I've got 3 cheap 4' fixtures in the part of the garage the Bronco parks in. Works great. I just had one die after 6 years, the other two are running great. No hum whatsoever. I think they were $10 each on sale.

 

[JGZ]

I found a couple of dock lights in a dumpster awhile back and they work awsome in conjunction with my troffer lights.The dock lights work great because you can put the light where you want it and then just fold them out of the way when not in use.

 

[Bronco Brian]

Go to a electric store like CED / Platt they will have what you need. Also ask about PG&E rebates.

 

[Scott C.]

Look into LED lights. They use less electricity.

 

[ransil]

Look into LED lights. They use less electricity.

maybe in 20 years... not right now.

Get some T-5 florescent, for a small garage hang them over the engine compartment , with the hood open and along the sides of the vehicle as it would be when you are working on it.

 

[Broncobowsher]

Thanks guys. I've found quite a few of the cheaper flourscents but not many better quality units. What should I expect to pay for a good 4' 2 bulb fixture...$60 or so? I've got a 3 car garage so I'm thinking probably about 6 total will work. Thanks.

Sound like the right number of lights. That is exactly what I have for my 3-car. I did mine 5 years ago and don't remember the cost. I don't think it was that much, but that was 5 years ago.

 

[broncotom]

I used the 8' sections that use 4 4' bulbs. one over each bay in the garage and then a few 2' one bulb push button flourscents over my workbench that I can turn on depending on which section of the bench I'm working on. I've very happy with this set up. I also painted the walls white for more reflective light.

 

[Entourage]

The new smaller diameter flourecents are really nice - bright, no hum, instant on, work in the cold, and easily replaceable. Dept sells 4 footers that hang from a chain so you can mount them anywhere and as many as you need. I replaced the porcelin Light Bulb holders with 4" round outlets so you can plug in 2 florecent strips into each old box. I have a couple on the pull chains so they are on when I need the extra light.

 

[VT_Don]

I thought I had an impressive, dream garage. Some of contributors to this enthusiast, garage site have palatial features. Over 30K posts on just electrical and lighting. Give it a read and you'll find some great ideas. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=30

 

[PhantomEB]

I have a double garage, the one I park in has two strips, one on each side of the vehicle and one perpendicular 20% from the front wall so I have light into the engine compartment, now the work side, I will have 3 strips on that half plus 3 perpendicular ones, so my work is lit up like day light. Eventually I will have underside cabinet lit up with similar 4 foot T12s for now. I hate shadows if I can help it, I eventually want 5-6 strips the full length with the far outers just a hit away from the outer walls, similar to 'perimeter' lighting.

 

[Broncitis]

When I finished out the inside of my shop a couple years ago I split off a 42' x 36' heated work area which I added better lighting.

In this section we installed 3 rows of T-8 florescent lighting. Each row has six 4' fixtures with two bulbs each for a total of 36 bulbs. The bulbs are 32W each, for a total of 1152W

I choose 6500K (daylight) bulbs to best represent colors. Each bulb puts out 2700 lumens, so I should have a total of 97,200 total lumens (not counting several sections of lighting directly over workbenches) or about 64.3 lumen / square foot or .76W / SF.

It is good to work in. Much better than most shops I have been in, but not quite as bright as some others. The white metal liner on the ceiling helps alot.

I thought about the HO lighting, which would have been better, but much more expensive. At the time we built a partition wall, insulated and finish metal sheeted all walls and ceiling, hard plumbed in air, added ceiling fans with wall controls, etc., so skipping the HO was one of the areas I saved a few dollars.

I think I have about $500 in all of the lighting materials.

The fixtures are from Lowe's as I recall. They do not hum on start up and even if I have the heat off they start up easily and get full bright quickly when cold.

If I had it all to do it again I would probably choose the same, but if I had it to do as a stand alone upgrade, I may splurge and try the HO's.

 

[englewoodcowboy]

I like the T8 HO bulbs/fixtures. They are very bright but not too bright. My shop is 24 x 50 and I have 5 (4 light fixtures) in at the moment and it is bright with a little bit of a shadow (pics are not that great bt you can see 1st pic before lights and the other two you can catch a few in the frames) and have 5 more planned real soon. The bad part is it runs about $120 each installed (Wire, bulbs, conduit, fixture, breaker, etc.) but they do not hum, are reasonably quick to light when cold (less than 2 min to completely warm up in the winter, instantly when above 60*) and they put out a ton of light. There is plenty of light with just 1 row but I want to kill the shadows caused by them being off center and angled with the pitch of the roof. The other side (when done) should just about do it.

 

[ransil]

keep an eye out on Craigslist, I picked up 20 T-8 fixtures & bulbs for my garage from there, it was from an electrical contractor he was replacing the fixtures in a chain store and a lot of them.

Now I just need to get them hung and wired.

 

[bmc69]

JUSt FYI as it relates to this thread...all our many office and shop lights are 4' 4-tube T12 flourescents. We just received notice from our electic company confirming the phase-out of all T12 production with nealy 70% phased out by 2012.

Beware of realy cheap deals on used ligting that are really attempts to 'dump' T12 fixtures before its completely common knowledge that they are history.

Speaking of..I've got a smoking deal going on approximately 50 quad-tube flourescent light fixtures.

 

[dave67fd]

I also did the 8', T8, 4 lamp setup. I bought 10 strips for a 28x38 and have plenty of light. Here is a link to where i bought them. They were the cheapest i could find. Quality is good and they use the Phillips transformers not the China made crap.

http://www.contractorlighting.com/8ft-lamp-watt-fluorescent-double-channel-strip-120277-p-176.html